Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister said:

The Oberstown centre envisaged that the visit would take place before the reviewers finalised the report - that was included in the terms of reference - in order that comments could be taken into account in the final version of the report. However, the reviewers maintain that it would not have been possible to provide feedback until the final report had been completed. Is that what the Deputy wants to have published? The reviewers consider it to be final.

I acknowledge the witnesses are repeating themselves. What I am trying to reconcile is that while we have not had access to the report, we do have access to the recommendations and we know that HIQA has had access to the report and there is a process of working through it. Ultimately all of this is to ensure that Oberstown is fit for purpose and there are robust procedures, protocols and standard operating procedures.

If there is still a sword of Damocles hanging over Oberstown in respect of this report, we are trying to tease out the fair procedure the Minister told us about in this committee. As she has not published the report, she must have received advices against publishing it. We are trying to reconcile that with the fact that to our minds, the public good is not being served by not publishing the report to date.